Description

The Burning Crusade, the first expansion pack for World of Warcraft, adds new story elements. After years of rebuilding following the Burning Legion's defeat, the Horde and Alliance open the Dark Portal and enter Outland. This new land is filled with danger and adventure for those brave enough to enter the Portal. The Portal is only open to characters level 58 and higher.

Two new races enter the world of Azeroth in this expansion - the Blood Elves and the Draenei. The Draenei are from Outland and having heard of the defeat of the Burning Legion by the forces on Azeroth, they have taken their ship, the Exodar, to Azeroth in search of help defeating the Legion in Outland. However, the Blood Elves sabotaged their ship and they crashed onto Azeroth and must pick up the pieces and go out in search of more allies. The Blood Elves, on the other hand, have come to do anything they can to stop the the Draenei and have little trust for either the Horde or Alliance. They are rebuilding the elven capital in Quel'Thalas and have a thirst for both magic and power. Both of the new races come with new mounts to ride and even new level 1 pets.

The expansion extends the level cap to 70 and the majority of the content is for characters level 60 to 70 with the exception of the two starting areas for the new races that offer enough quests to get characters up to level 20 before heading out into the rest of Azeroth. There is also a new neutral city for both Horde and Alliance to visit.

Another major addition to the game is the new profession of Jewelcrafting as well as socketed items that gems can be placed into for added benefits. This new profession works in conjunction with mining to prospect gems from the ore and create new items that can be used by the crafter or sold to others. Anyone can place gems in the sockets of their equipment, but Jewelcrafters are the ones who are most likely to find the gems to use in those sockets.

Additional new content includes:

6 new dungeons

3 controllable flying mounts to be used in Outland after reaching level 70

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Trivia

Release

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade was released at participating Electronics Boutique/EBGames stores across the USA and Australia, which opened their doors at midnight for fans to pick up their expansion packs within the first few minutes of the game's scheduled release date.

South Park

South Park's animated TV episode, Make Love, Not Warcraft was produced on the alpha server for World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. The folks at Blizzard were very cooperative in assisting the animators in crafting the machinima that was filmed in-game. They even provided the model files and graphics so they could be altered and used for animation. The developers even used "The Sword of a Thousand Truths" as an actual weapon to be found in the game.

Trial Edition

In June 2007, Blizzard Entertainment Europe sent out a trial edition by mail to anyone who had a current paid subscription or had ever had a paid subscription to World of Warcraft, to try the expansion for free for 10 days. It requires to have the base game installed and offers limited functionality.

Players can start a new dranei or blood elf character and explore their new starting areas. An existing high level character (+58) can also be taken through the Dark Portal into the Outland. All expansion quests are available, as well as the items and skill advancements, but the characters cannot level beyond level 60. New skills such as jewelcrafting are also present, but players are not able to train new levels or certain recipes as the trainers are all located in the expansion zones. Pets can also be kept, and the characters count against the character limit (10 per realm, 50 per account). When the trial expires, the new characters become inaccessible but can be unlocked when the expansion is bought.